writing

Leave a comment Posted on Herbert Hoover, writing

What’s paragraphing? Don’t ask a 15-year-old.

The other day I asked my students what they knew about Herbert Hoover, the name emblazoned on their school.   Besides a few rudimentary things such as he was a president, few knew anything else.

Then I asked about Mark Keppel and Eleanor J. Toll, names of their elementary and middle schools, respectively.

Nothing.

Isn’t it odd that students can attend a school for several years yet not be taught anything about the person whose name graces the building they enter and exit day after day?

They were never curious enough to Google these names even though they have libraries of information at their fingertips on the phones they carry.

Just another reminder about the paradox that surrounds us living at a time when information is everywhere, yet people seem less knowledgeable despite the technological advancements.

Unfortunately, from my view in the classroom trenches, the downward trend of what kids know is not surprising.

Exhibit A:  student writing.

Picture a piece of notebook paper with printing (no more cursive handwriting) that starts on the first line all the way on the left-hand side and continues down the entire page without any indentations, paragraphs or blank lines.  Just a block of text.

I even have students who turn in multiple pages of their work without stapling them together.

If I were talking about a third grade class, you wouldn’t be surprised.

But I’m referring to 10th graders in an honors class, two years away from entering college.

Yikes!

How can a 15-year-old get this far in school and not know how to follow the most fundamental rules of writing?

Students’ lack of paragraphing carries over to more critical areas of writing such as formulating a thesis, organizing topics, supporting opinion with evidence, and so on.

With each passing year that I teach, I have seen a degradation in students’ writing skills.

It’s not that students don’t know how to write, it’s that teachers haven’t asked them enough times to practice it.

Kids aren’t getting the instruction and practice they need to become more effective communicators.   The amount of writing a student does depends on the individual teacher.

If a student writes one paper per quarter, four papers a year, in grades 9-12, that totals 16 papers in one’s high school career.  But more often than not, students receive even less writing practice than that.

For the most part, students write papers in their English classes.  Imagine how much stronger their skills would be if they were practicing them in history and science classes.

The writing doesn’t have to be multiple page opuses.  Even a one-pager regularly assigned can provide sufficient practice in exercising their writing muscles.

Years ago, I was asked to coach social science teachers on how to grade short pieces of writing using rubrics.   There was resistance.

If only English teachers are expected to give writing assignments, students will continue floundering.

After all, today’s English teachers must deliver differentiating instruction for three types of student populations—regular ability, special education, English language learners—in a classroom bulging near 40 pupils.

And it is expected those instructors will assign writing on a regular basis?   Where is the time outside of work hours to grade 175 papers?

As I have written in this space before, Glendale Unified used to support English teachers with lay readers and paper grading days to ease the heavy workload.  However, those programs have long been eliminated.

Why should the average person worry about these things?

Think about where these less than qualified students are headed:  the workforce.  The people who will be our caretakers in law, accounting and medicine.  It is not just about indenting paragraphs.

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on public schools, schools, students, teachers, writing

High School Classes are not College Prep

Over the years that I have been an English teacher, there has been a steady decline in students’ writing skills.

Every time I assign a major piece of writing, one that is multiple pages in length, I brace myself for the avalanche of papers about to be turned in.   It’s not the sheer volume of 100 plus essays submitted in one day that blows me back; it’s the poor quality that is troubling.

It can be quite disheartening to read student writing from advanced students and realize that these young people, the best in their class, struggle to organize their thoughts, unable to form a clear argument.

Reasons for this decline does not require a Brookings Institute study.  Kids are reading less and teachers are assigning less writing.

In the most recent round of essays I graded, one-third of the papers did not mention the literature being written about in the introduction, and when they did, these 15-year-olds did not properly punctuate the book title.

Like turning a car engine on and off, their papers began, ended and began again in just two paragraphs, each paragraph reading as a new beginning, lacking transitions or threads to the thesis.

They often bounced back and forth between present and past tense, singular and plural pronoun forms in the same sentence.

And some students decided to analyze the film version, not the book itself, perhaps because they did not read it.

I teach my students that the best mistake prevention tool when writing is to read their paper out loud; few did it as evidenced by the scores of typos not caught by a spellchecker.  What else explains not capitalizing names of characters or misspelling the names altogether.

I asked my students how many of their teachers (other than me) require them to write an expository essay:  53 percent said one, 14 percent said none.

Of course, students don’t have to write full-fledged essays to practice writing.   Students can show their thinking by writing multiple sentence answers to test questions.  So, I queried my students on this.

While 40 percent replied that they have two or more teachers who administer these type of tests, 32 percent have just one teacher who does so, while 28 percent have none.   That means, for the majority of the time, students are taking multiple choice tests which require no writing beyond a fill in the blank.

Remember, these students are taking other advanced placement classes, the most rigorous courses the school has to offer.   Think about how little writing must be happening in the regular classes.

The teachers at the secondary level, especially those who don’t teach English, need to have students read critically and write analytically as often as they can.   With so little writing being practiced, students enter college with a huge handicap.

My freshman son volunteered that only a couple of his high school classes prepared him for the level of writing and the amount of reading required in college; this coming from someone who took several Advanced Placement classes.  Even though all the courses were labeled “college prep,” few deserved that distinction.

If one of the missions of high school is to prepare students for university-level work, we are doing a miserable job.

Could this partially explain why only 21 percent of Cal State University freshmen finish college in four years?

Finding a student paper that isn’t riddled with errors is as rare as finding a parking space at the Glendale Galleria on Black Friday.   And when there is a crisply written paper with an eye-catching opening, a strong argument, and quotes which support astute observations, a teacher wants to shout “hallelujah,” with hope in America’s youth restored.

Until the next paper on the pile.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Public Education, students, writing

Writing any Book is an Accomplishment

Last week I was invited to participate in the Local Authors’ Showcase held at the Buena Vista Library in Burbank.

For me, the event gave me an opportunity to talk shop with fellow writers, and to meet interesting people such as the executor of famed film director and screenwriter Richard Brooks who made films such as “Elmer Gantry,” “In Cold Blood,” “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” and “The Blackboard Jungle” (whose title I adapted for the title of my column).

Another encounter involved a former long-time substitute teacher who gave me an earful about how awful teaching kids are nowadays.   I stood there with a non-committal expression, politely letting her finish her rant, hoping that by not engaging in a debate with her I would encourage a sale. No such luck.

This wasn’t surprising when you think about it. Holding a “books for sale” event at a library is a hard sell (pun intended) since the people circulating from table to table are those who visit a library expressly because it is a public space with free wi-fi, books, and DVDs.

That’s why it made perfect sense when one elderly looky-loo told a fellow writer that she hasn’t bought a book in several years.

Having plenty of time sitting there watching people pick up my books and put them back down allowed me to ponder the plight of a writer.

While the vast majority of authors present were self-published (I was one of the few there who wasn’t), even the worst book took a certain level of dedication to complete.

If the ultimate goal of writing is to make a pot of gold, then most writers are failures.

Just as with other art forms, only the upper echelon of writers make the real money. That explains why publishers like Scribner pour millions into publicizing established moneymakers such as Stephen King, but will not fund the publicity of lesser known writers.   Why take a chance on a no-name when one can sell even more copies of what already works?

Yet success should not be measured by one’s Amazon sales ranking.

One writer with a walker, after receiving no takers at her table, decided to make the rounds of other writers, figuring she may as well make good use of her time by informing them of her memoir based on seven generations of her family.   This woman clearly poured her soul into this book even if no one was buying it.

By documenting her family’s history, she ensured that their lives mattered.

It’s the old philosophical question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

If a book is published and no one reads it, does it exist?

Emphatically, yes.

This is the lesson I try teaching my students when they write their short memoirs. They get it “published” by having classmates read it. Knowing that there will be an audience, no matter the size, makes a big difference in the effort they put into the work.

So even though vanity presses and self-published books may be the step-children in the publishing world, there is some value to these works.   And that’s why events like a local authors’ showcase serve a purpose; even if it means no books are bought, stories are shared . . . and are worth hearing.